On a clear day
by Superkawaiifreak
Summary: Roxas' last year in college is drama: he narrowly escapes an abusive relationship, is arrested, and tumbles through questions of "what now?" Meanwhile, Axel runs the drug rehab center, Sora plays the violin, and Roxas daydreams about love in the rain, self-worth, and sand castles. For Akuroku Day 2017.


Justification(s): Never let the toxicity of anger approach. It's about healing and carbonated soul-searching. I hope this speaks to you in some capacity. Probably the most coherent thing I've written, and that's not saying much. There's plenty of verb tense change, so pay attention, kids, but even if you don't notice, the overall framework of this should work. Or at least, I hope it does. Happy AkuRoku Day 2017. I am thankful for Axel and Roxas in ways that I can't quite articulate, even after all of these years.

AN: roman à clef, _The Tempest_ , _Wuthering Heights_ , Karl Marx, French baroque music, Sylvia Plath, & Stephen Crane

TW: sex, peripheral abuse, drugs

* * *

"On a clear day"

* * *

It is starlit and the night engulfs them, it opens its warm mouth. Breathy, moist, fogged windows. Crickets chirp in the black night.

"And so what I really mean to say that is if you _make visible_ the means of production, you are closer to a more equitable political and economic society because human suffering is no longer disguised. Things come from people, you know? And the average unit cost of labor will finally be seen for what it fucking _is_ \- people's lives! Their lives!"

Roxas' throat is dry as he takes a risky hit from Pence's pipe. A grayish plume floats up and shrouds his face, the thick scent of weed hanging in the air.

"Like we're all forced to just get up and decide where we have to work from nine to five, and shit man, fuck that. Fuck that," Pence feels for the lighter. "I want to do what I want. You know?"

"Yeah dude, I feel that," Roxas says, feeling his thoughts running in a wild fury. "The move to industrialization wasn't the best. Now we're forced to do all this unnecessary shit,"

Pence focuses on something beyond the horizon. He squints. "Like in the Meiji Restoration, how the land was taken,"

"Don't even get me started on that. And wait, to be fair, the land flipping thing didn't even happen until the end of World War II," Roxas takes two hits, his mouth ashy. A gentle plume swirled thickly on his exhalation, yet he felt the smoke rise inside of his stomach, his sacrum, toes curling.

"Same thing though. Japanese people wanting to Westernize at their own detriment, for whatever fucking reason," Pence says, disgusted.

Over the speakers, blasting and beating the epitome of disenchantment with institutional violence because of all woes of white supremacy and sexual impotence, some Kenrick Lamar rap spits dirty truths into Roxas' wilting ears, his mind abuzz. The words like yellow flower dust, they mix into the tepid substrate that is Roxas' unruly understandings of critical racial theory, and he feels the fucking weight of the world riding his shoulders, knowing full well that he is just one action away from being hammered beyond perfection. Another plume engulfs him, and he decides that the deep, herby smell is actually quite comforting, like a dry towel after being showered in the cold rain. Hands create things, or something like that, and Roxas barely makes out the high-pitched whinnying from behind. He sees flashing lights, red and blue like the flag of liberty, and thinks he's dreaming. Alas, the fertility takes effect, and the first petal falls, floats, to the arid dirt below.

"Fucking _drive_ ," he nearly shouts, teeth gritting together, his entire body numb. " _Drive_ , Pence, _drive,_ " oh my fucking _fuck._

"Hmm?" Pence is all eyes. Dirty brown eyes and smiley lips, his cheeks flushed a nice rose. Roxas already knows and understands, terrified, that he is completely powerless. A note won't save him from the iron fist of the law. He and Pence, both dark-haired _men_ dressed in street clothes, have no chance at negotiation. He, and he alone, is privy to this ordeal which, in another time in another neighborhood, might afford him the excuse of being scared, naïve, a punk, heartbroken from a recent breakup. That's not how the law works, he reminds himself, seeing the utter futility of his hands, as if digging on the surf of a beach. The "law." The officer. Maybe Roxas could blow the cop. Escape. Run.

Then the bright flashlights pierce through the driver's window and a faint gold glimmer, like a trickle of stagnant honey light, illuminates the small plastic canister in Pence's hand, and Roxas leaves his body. His lips are cold. Questioning takes fifteen minutes. Pence is cussing again, calling Officer Wermbach a cunt and displaying an exaggerated sense of protection for his car.

"If you even think about putting your pen on the car, I'll have you know my mom's an attorney!" Pence spits for good measure. "She has her J.D. and I doubt you even have your Associate's!"

Roxas, hair electric, groans and shakes his head. _I'm so fucking fucked, oh my god._

"I'm going to be very frank with you, sir," the officer slowly walks up to Pence, swaggering. "If you do not stop, I will take you to Fourth Street tonight and you'll have to sit behind bars until someone comes to get you." His cold eyes freeze on Pence. "But I'm a nice guy, and I really don't want to drive 30 miles just to teach you a lesson at 2 AM." Officer Wermbach shifts to one leg and eyes Roxas wearily.

"... fuckin' complicit pigs. Playing for your own levels of ease and comfort. Selfish."

His eyes a vector, Roxas pleads with the officer. "I'm sorry about him," he spilled out apologies like a pathetic faucet, sweating and sweating, feeling only the cold metal on his wrists. It's all he could feel. It's all he could concentrate on. That and the cold concrete beneath his ass, pushing on his sit bones, as if attempting to push him from the Earth. Weightless, gravity weak, he's thrown from the planet and leaves behind a slimy trail of oranges, yellow, blues, and various shades of green.

"He's not himself today," Roxas doesn't even know what's coming out of his mouth. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Oh my god, sorry. "I'm sorry, just please, don't take us anywhere. I'm sorry _for_ him," Roxas's teeth chattered incessantly against the sharpness of the cold night air. His eyes smarted. "Please, just give us a chance."

Beyond the infamous Miranda Rights –

I'm going to have to ask you to exit the vehicle, sir. Please sit on the curb, and don't run, OK?

Roxas is all hands and gestures, nearly crying. I won't, I won't, believe me I'll be right here.

Wermbach flips a little book out of his pocket, an uneasy grimace on his face. Roxas Tripp, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against y…

– Roxas barely recalls the night. He couldn't sleep until 7 AM. It was ghastly. His mattress was like a metal sheet against his back, the severe angles of the naked, plastic seats of a police car. Impersonal metal. Adrenaline and white-hot fury coated his sleep. How could Pence have forgotten to turn on his fucking headlights? That they hadn't even gotten pulled over for something meaningful infuriated him. He has his entire life ahead of him - so close, so _very fucking close_ , to completing that double major from college. Years spent toiling, wasting away, in dusty libraries, and for what? To be juked at the last minute, to be arrested for the mistake of another? How would he find a job? How would be afford clothes, pass a background check, buy alcohol at Trader Joe's? How would he continue his tiny, quaint, expensive, endearing, heart-breaking, wonderful life?

Thoughts of this nature circulated around his head for most of the night. No one, not even the rain, could have had such small hands.

Early the next morning, he jolted awake from an hour-long sleep and padded across the hall to his dad's old office. Muted sunlight filtered in through opaque clouds, the light spreading further in the white curtains. He thoughtfully rubbed an eye. His heart had yet to stop jumping in his chest. Overwhelmed, his body shifted to autopilot, and he frowned severely then burst into tears. Where the metal clasped his wrist his skin was still sensitive, raw. Nighttime fog so bone-chilling that he couldn't control the inappropriate leg twitching while sitting, handcuffed and searched, blinding red and blue shining into his eyes. He couldn't trust his body or his perception. He couldn't rely on intelligence or observation. What a horrible fucking night.

He understandably recoiled at the ink stained across his thumb.

"So," he croaked to himself. "So…" Lifting the old landline phone from its receiver, he smiled gently, taking comfort in the cool black color of the cord. He dug his cell phone from his pocket and pulled up the Notes he had taken on whom to call to settle this case. _Arrested._ He winced and dropped his phone onto the desk's glass surface.

 _Come on, Roxas._

After talking himself up again, he found a ten-digit number in the Notes and promptly dialed it into the family landline. Out of place, and out of context, he sat for hours hunched in the leather chair, peppering conversations with his name, address, and record (nothing save this incident). His tongue soon learned how to explain his case to strangers quickly with the rate at which he was transferred between municipal departments, as if he were a piece of data, a half-human living beneath the rocks, the milquetoast of the city. He wondered when he would be on the other side of this. He wondered if he truly could be expunged, and if he would be able to shake off this restlessness, and if he would have the privilege of perching on a wobbly chair under the oppressive sunlight and ensconced in black graduation regalia, as the ultimate rite of passage to receive his two Bachelor of Arts degrees. Would he be able to graduate, nervous, beside his friends? He wanted to hold the expensive commencement program, wanted to drink from the Aquafina bottles placed under his chair by the Event Services Unit, maybe even nurse a hangover during the University Dean's contrived and mostly vacuous speech. He wanted the horrible humidity from California at 8 AM, the cake fights at grad parties, to feel the chest-constricting loneliness the week after graduation, begging the question: _now what?_

Until then, he'd be forced to make daily phone calls over dusted-over dial pads, which, until now, hadn't felt human touch since Roxas was younger and had sticky hands and no thoughts of freedom as a binary.

"Hi, I'd like to speak to the county attorney about the strict legal definitions of felonies and misdemeanors, and the process of being booked."

Oh, yes. No, I was not the victim, I was the one arrested.

Yes, yep, thank you.

Last night. Officer Wermbach, I think? Okay. Yes. Thank you so much.

I've never even been in a car accident.

I go to Piedmont University. Haha, thanks. I was charged with two felonies.

I know, I know, California has different laws.

Could you please transfer me to Maria? Thank you.

Have a great day.

-0-

"I honestly don't even want to talk about it,"

Across from Roxas, he lifts his bow from the violin, sighing. "Yeah, I can see why." He shakes out his arm. Replays a C-sharp major scale, knowing full well it's Roxas' favorite key. "Okay, new subject. How are your classes?"

Roxas lights up, giddy. "Actually great! I can finally fucking focus on my own work for the first time in, what… Two years?" He shakes his head. "Yeah, ever since Nam and I broke up, life's been a lot better all around. Sort of sad to say that, I guess."

Sora tightens his mouth. _Nam._ He remembers a frantic 3 AM call last September, featuring a distraught Roxas and a drunken Namine, their house apparently in wreckage from Namine's ultra-artistic, charcoal-wielding hands. He remembers the month-long period that Roxas, ever the punctual, showed up late to class and toting two 20-ounce thermoses, both full of ghee-infused Philz coffee, which had weighed down his messenger bag considerably. Roxas' left shoulder had started to throb, Sora remembers. For too long, Sora wondered why he had carried two, then remembered:

 _If I don't have at least two servings of coffee in the morning,_ a curled lash blinks, intense pink lips frown, _I can't even function during the day._ Namine would make her lower lip tremble, eyes lowered to Roxas, her head swooping to his shoulder, _I hate it. Thank you for bringing my coffee every morning, baby._ She'd kiss him. Melt into his hands.

"It's not sad," Sora ventured. He hated her. He played an easy warm-up to fill the air – Roxas, above all else, felt happiest hearing live music. In any form, any key, and any pitch. Bad musicians are still musicians. "It's not. It's tragic, I would say, that you were in that situation… But at some point or another, you'd have to go through that kind of thing. I'm just glad it happened now, when we can all be here for you, and not when you're 34 living in a New York studio with no way out."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "That's a little extreme."

"Are you kidding me? Happens all the time, everywhere. You're lucky, Roxas. And we're lucky, too."

"Why are you lucky? I thought this was about me,"

"No, I mean, we're lucky you saw the light." Sora's face is serious. Sad – so sad. "I don't know what went down, you know what _actually_ went down, but it can't have been good." —

Go fuck yourself Roxas

(Why is my praline latte empty already? Did you throw it in the kitch—ants are going to come now Namine…)

It's your fault for having BPD Roxas I was molested when

—Roxas shakes his head. "Yeah, whatever. Can you play something?"

"Vivaldi, coming right up!" Sora stands and does a few spins around the room, smiling. "I know things are fucked right now, Roxas. I do," he leans into the song and it ribbons into the air, is swallowed by the sunlight. "But you're in such a better place. At least you know your record can be cleared after you finish this program. It's gonna suck, for sure, but…" he blushes slightly and stops playing.

"Hmm?" Roxas turns in his chair to face Sora, the beautiful musiscian. Violinist. Roxas remembers being utterly enchanted by Sora when they first met. Sora places his violin and bow atop Roxas' fluffy white comforter and stands in front of him.

"… Um, it'll suck, but Roxas, you should know that we all love you. Olette, Hayner, Pence, Riku. Kairi, even. And we're so happy you're in control of your life again," he leans over slightly and touches Roxas's shoulders. "And I am your number one. Forever, or at least for now." He pulls Roxas into a heart-stopping embrace, feeling a nose buried in his chest. Roxas' muscles are smooth and hard beneath his soft cotton shirt. He's warm. Sora runs his hand through Roxas' soft hair, smiling and eyes quietly tearing and mind remembering, chanting, as if in church, _thank god. Thank fucking god. I love you, I love you, I love you._

-0-

His last semester was full of strife and wonderment, to say the least. Clouds splayed themselves across the sky like whipped egg whites. Every day, strolling from the opposite end of campus to his graduate seminar, he privileged himself the scenic view across the university's main grassy knoll and looked up. Roxas had been told, by Olette, that he was one of the only people she knew that actually made it a point to look up. It wasn't something totally meaningful, he'd argue. He wanted to see the clouds.

What the hell was home-fucking-home, he'd ask himself while sitting in his seminar. The class, to be sure, was certifiably crazy. The question no longer centered on whether the new epoch of human-caused destruction existed. The question centered on how to go forward – _how to live with the trouble_ , to quote his favorite author, Donna Haraway. Horrifying facts of world slavery quotas, endangered species, exploitation of nonhuman organisms, and of course, the dust.

The particles, the matter, that remained. Flames and charcoal – dust. Erosion. Windswept cliffs. Crumbling bones, crushed skulls, bones losing their collagen and exploding into dust. Cities as fossils of industry and human technology; cities will remain as megalithic fossils, their dust telling stories invisible to the undisturbed eye.

And that's it, he thinks. Is there a way to rethink a future so out of the current narrative that it acknowledges alternative forms of existence, circuitry taking the place of beating hearts, devoid of that ironic dominance so often woven into reinventions of utopianism?

Most of the time, he wrote while stoned out of his mind. The second semester of senior year, and last semester of his undergraduate life, Roxas was understandably baked. Whether it was the fucking, the sleeping, the lack of either or both, the drug that landed him in an uncertain felony-but-not-felony charge enhanced the comprehensibility of daily musings. He had computer science homework due twice a week, and fuck, after programming for four hours straight, he wanted to let go. Wanted to think about how happy he was to have moved out of Namine's god-awful apartment.

Oh, and that was something, too. The sterile, ultra-modern, severely angled and sharp living quarters that he shared with Namine made him want to kill himself most days. No, of course, he didn't understand that _that_ was the immense pressure on his chest each morning; that, upon waking, the golden slants of light hitting the bluish curtains poisoned him with meaningful thoughts of death. He had fallen into the bell jar without realizing it. He was unbelievably depressed, suicidal, and ashen. But, like a honey bee trapped in a mason jar, he kept telling himself that the glass walls shackling his heart were there because he was simply lazy, out of shape, unhealthy, too stupid. Again and again, he's run headfirst to that same, promising, seemingly rational and physically real conclusion.

(Glass walls must be shattered for their insidious promise of truth disguised as a transparent lapel.)

Slate-gray bedding, stiff pillows, a window to nowhere. Suicidal ideation, first beginning at the ripe age of eight, made its inevitable return in the last four months with Namine. What's four months to 16? To 24? Cooking dinner, some iteration of creamed spinach, proved a challenge: "I could add some salt to this." Roxas licks the spatula tentatively. "Maybe garlic. Or I could die." Even now, those intrusive thoughts caught him off guard.

That's how most evenings went with Namine. He'd stoically ruminate overdoses, too pussy to actually hurt himself. To stand the pain of ripping his flesh. He'd be buzzed, wine spurting through his veins and blushing his skin, standing in front of the stovetop, gingerly and slowly stirring something in the non-stick pan that Namine had ruined by vigorously scrubbing with a shower loofa. She'd return around 2 AM from her ungodly work schedule; insist on smoking at least a blunt before sleeping in spite of having an 8 AM lecture. And after said blunt, she would sink her teeth into the overripe bananas their roommate, Xion, had neglected to toss, and leave the slimy peel on the edge of her pillow.

Nights turned to weeks, weeks bled into months. Months? Months ticked tocked ticked. Months, in the seasonless city, availed themselves through leaf transformations, and when Roxas finally realized that leaves in Piedmont failed to blush, to redden, two years had passed. Months were disorienting and too heavy to comprehend. He'd usually lie flat on his back and open up his left arm where Namine would crawl, body like ice, nuzzle her head into Roxas' neck, and drift to sleep, a peachy smile blossoming across her face.

-0-

Diffuse fluorescent light flooded the musty office, its crumbling drywall proof that faith tends to help those whose inner psychologies mirror religious dilapidation. A cross, made of fish bone, is nailed to the wall. Jesus Christ's head is lolled to the side. His arms raised, body a blanched stone, Jesus has a stomach like an ant, and Roxas felt the penetrating, wild-eyed gazes of the holy spirits surrounding him. A nervous blonde mother sits upright in her plastic green chair, lost in the caverns of her drug addict son's mind. And this it: the faith-based drug rehab center, with its garish crosses of Jesus, mini gold Bibles, sloppily written scripture above doorways. Options Recovery Services, LLC., complete with its plum-colored paint. Excruciating.

"You need what?"

Roxas blushed. "Uh, I need a urine analysis test, please,"

"A urinalysis. Okay, let me get someone for you," said the office manager, a silver-haired man, older. "Err, actually. Wait," he waved Roxas over, "Let me log you into the books. What's your social?"

Faint greasy smells, whether fish or potatoes, wafted into the front room. A loud man burst through the cheap laminate door, his belly hanging over distasteful jeans. Hair cemented with pomade, teeth a calm chartreuse. None paid any attention to his disgusting appearance. Oh, there it was—the golden cross hanging from his neck. Cherries for cheeks. The apprehensive mother, upright and stiff, started to bounce her foot. Her son was unfortunately too skinny to be clean, still held those nervous eyes, easily giving him the appearance of a not-recovering addict. Excruciating.

-0-

"Are you coming to my concert?" Roxas asked Sora. He always asked Sora.

"Mmm, I think so,"

"Really? You _think_ so?"

"Mmhmm," Sora stretches out on the grass, yawning. "Riku and I might go. Maybe Demyx, maybe some other dude,"

"We're doing a French baroque set. Delalande's masterpiece, too!"

"Ah, De Profundis, a personal favorite," Sora mused, running his hand through his hair. A nearby squirrel darted past them to retrieve a forgotten Cheez-It left behind by some meal point-laden freshman. "You know, I'm mostly going for the Berlioz, to be honest. Isn't there a guest conductor?"

Mouth agape, he started, "yeah, actually. Did I tell you?"

Sora shot him a knowing glance. Smiled. "Oh yes. Word is he's quite the looker," He snickered, leaning over Roxas, who was on his back.

Roxas smirked. "The conductor is… Very talented."

"So you'd fuck him," Sora teased.

"Have you seen how well he keeps time? I bet you'd fuck him,"

"What does he look like?"

"He's just your type. Broad shoulders, dark and shiny hair, a knowing smile. Just your type."

Sora blushed. "Oi, aren't you allergic to grass?"

"Pollen, yeah. Plant sperm."

"Yep. It irritates your skin."

"Yep," Roxas makes a face at Sora.

"Mmm. Cool. Good talk."

"… So are you coming?"

"Um," Sora turns to his violin case. He takes out the dark-colored bow, eyes aflame, "of course, _mon ami_. I wouldn't miss the chance to see you and your sexy guest conductor."

Sora and Roxas reclined into the grassy hill, both yawning. And for a long while, during that lilting and lazy and slow-moving, latently joyful afternoon, Roxas drifted in and out of a honeyed sleep, only hearing the redolent notes, sometimes-somber notes, arcing out of Sora's Italian violin. A jarring smell – one of sweetness, of Easter, of Peter Rabbit and his dandelions, of yellowed horizons and dry cotton blankets on a snowy winter morning – infected his sleep. He dreamt. In the desert, he saw a creature. It bled and ate of a blackened heart, the juices running down its crinkled arms. He approached it. The creature turned to him, had the face of Roxas, his very own pale and blond face, dropped the heart, a charcoal lump, and stood on it with one strong foot, bringing its fleshy mouth to Roxas'. Blood smeared everywhere. Their lips pressed together, and its tongue entered Roxas' mouth. Roxas blinked away salt. Cotton clouds suddenly sunk to his feet, engulfing both he and the desert creature, suffocating them, possessing them, crushing. Roxas broke from the creature and put the cotton in his mouth.

-0-

"That's him?"

Sora beamed. "Yeah, that's Roxas!"

Donned in a fitted, charcoal button-up shirt, pressed slacks, and leather dress shoes, Roxas' tanned skin stood out marvelously against the black. This was a joint concert between the San Francisco Symphony and the university choirs. The real showstoppers had yet to come on stage. Hertz Hall glowed beneath the warm house lights.

"I love this auditorium. The seats are the traditional velvet, but aren't red, thank god," Sora excitedly ushered the group down aisle P. "Now, go all the way in the middle. This is the spot with the best acoustics."

Kairi eyed Xion, who wore a shy expression. How did that resolve – that small, tiny issue of having never intervened in her roommate's abusive tendencies toward her then-boyfriend? Of having been an active bystander, of having ignored those inexplicable glass shards constantly lining the windowpanes? Was it cowardly to avoid being home during Namine's bipolar episodes, instead opting to grab a small duffel bag and driving over to Kairi's place for the night? Wasn't it wrong to call someone's bipolarity abusive? Shouldn't we help them? The line blurs. Wasn't it wrong to be thrown into walls, made to think you have a mental illness, to be guilt-tripped every time you got drinks with a remotely attractive friend? Roxas thinks so.

It was escaping the flow of lava, mud, and lahars when those episodes began. Too many times, Xion's eyes frantically met Roxas' as she careened down the stairs and out of the house, the fiery heat biting at her ankles, her back, feeling deep shame for leaving Roxas. Did Xion understand that it was Roxas' fucking _body_ that was the intermediary between his psyche and Namine's? That his skin, his chest, his fucking hands, were branded with injury and tossed between two opposing minds as proof of some larger ideological conflict? Once she yanked the door open, back to the wood, she'd hear the explosion commence: chattering, sobs, strangled voices, some part of their drywall being punctured by a stick of non-aluminum deodorant, and the barely-tensile, barely-calm, stoic voice of Roxas cutting through the noise. The anchor. –

Roxas: Please listen to me. You never listen and I never know what you are thinking. If there were more money you could do this but there isn't and… Do you truly understand how much I have to work to support you, Nam? I work 30 hours a week on top of my double-major course load, on top of office hours, on top of my thesis, on top of music, on top of my thesis meetings, on top of fellowship applications. I work so hard to make it work.

Namine: No you don't

Roxas: Why do you think that, Nam? The whole reason we live together in this shitty place is because you can't support yourself so I'm helping you. Baby, please listen.

Namine: It isn't all on me! You're the problem. I've been writing about it

Roxas: Writing?

Namine: Yes. And see, you don't even ask about my daily life anymore

Roxas: What? I didn't know you liked to write.

Namine: Well I do and it's no fucking thanks to you

Roxas: Really? That makes no sense.

Namine: It does you understand nothing

Roxas: God, you are impossible.

Namine: Fuck you! You abusive piece of fucking shit you always call me names

Roxas: I'm not perfect I know, but I'm frustrated, you don't hear me and I don't know what else to do. I'm sorry.

Namine: So you just abuse me then you don't work hard at anything except for demeaning me don't you think I've been abused enough I was molested when I was ten and no one gives a fuck see this goes to show that you truly do not think of me

Roxas: That's not true.

Namine: And you gaslight me, Roxas, you gaslight me into oblivion, make me think I'm just a crazy person with nothing valuable to say

Roxas: I don't do that, Nam.

Namine: You do

Roxas: Okay.

– "You're sure she's not coming?" Xion asked, turning to Kairi. The amber lights bathed them, their hair reflecting the sheens as if halos.

"As sure as I can be," Kairi said. "She removed me from Find My Friends. I used to be able to keep track, but she found out that I downloaded the app on her phone and flipped. Whatever," she shook her head. Curiously, she looked down their group of friends. "Who's that guy Sora brought?"

Xion lifted her eyes, a gentle mischief taking over. "Redhead?"

Kairi nodded.

"I actually don't know. Let's find out."

"Hey," Kairi nudged Riku, who sat to her left. He raised his eyebrows. "Who's that guy? Do we like him?"

"Uh," Riku started, his voice lowering, "he's in orchestra with Sora. Harp, I think."

"So is he a music major?" Xion asked, leaning over to join the conversation.

"Nope. He's anthropology and is into web development. Volunteers at some place on the weekends in downtown. Pretty cool combination, I think. And yes, we like him."

"Axel wants you to know that he's actually minoring in music, too!" Sora playfully shouted, his voice full of energy. He giggled. "Sorry, but we can hear you from a mile away."

"Ask me after the show, ladies. De Profundis is about to start, and they're using real baroque instruments. Can't miss that." Axel said coolly. He leaned back in his seat, eyes focused on the array of golds, yellows, and oranges lighting up the stage. Roxas stared back at the group, blue eyes peeking from the house lights. Kairi, Xion, and Riku smiled to each other.

-0-

"Oh my god," Axel couldn't stop laughing. Literally keeled over, his face in his hands, he blocked the foot traffic to the bathroom. "Oh my god, someone hold my program, oh my god,"

Puzzled, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Xion, Pence, Hayner, and Olette looked at each other. Roxas had just finished the performance of his life: French baroque, De Profundis, and a four-line solo. The San Francisco Symphony's Berlioz rendition matched with the choir's exceedingly well, and the guest conductor was a hit with the audience. Axel sat at the edge of his seat with rapt attention, his jade eyes narrowed and unblinking.

("See? I told you he would love Roxas' singing. No one is impervious to his vocal charm!"

Riku, as well as the others, noted the way Axel leaned forward during Roxas' featured solo, his eyes nearly exploding out of his head. The fact that Axel kept the time with his foot, never missing a beat, impressed Sora. Kairi liked Axel's perfect appearance, from the cloying red hair to the dark washed jeans, casual boots, the meaningful silver ring.)

Roxas, who was barely in their line of sight, saw that too-familiar red hair and couldn't bring himself to approach the group. Is this a fucking joke? Was this a cosmic joke? Could that be…?

"Jesus," he mumbled to himself, forcibly walking over. His choir friends had given him flowers – nice arrays of pastel-colored roses, bunches of baby's breath, lilies – and his hands were full.

"Roxas!" Sora cheered, seeing his friend approach.

"You were amazing!"

"Way to go, Roxas! That solo blew me away!"

"We have more flowers for you!"

Still laughing, a mystery to everyone, Axel sent a sunny smile to Roxas and walked over. What did those eyes know?

Roxas couldn't fight off the grin spreading across his face. Warm, so warm – a huge, tickling swell launched from his feet and into his chest, like confetti. He burst out in laughter, a scarlet blush lighting up his face as if Dionysus, himself, had spent the afternoon pouring bottles of red wine onto his face. Sultry, tempestuous, viscous. Slow-moving. No one understood the connection.

" _Axel_ ," Roxas dropped his flowers, laughing into his hands, "what in the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"I was invited!" He keeled over again, tears coming down his face. "Sora invited me to see the Berlioz, I swear to god!"

"How do you guys…?"

"What's happening?"

" _I test his piss every week!"_

"… Roxas?" Sora asked.

Roxas looked at Axel, a thousand suns in his eyes, overwhelmed. "I can't believe this still. Yes, Sora, yes. In fact," Roxas picked up his flowers and looked around the circle. "Everyone, remember how I told you I was arrested? Well, as part of the process to clear my record, I have to participate in this program to make sure that _I'm clean_ ,"

"And I'm the volunteer that _visually monitors_ Roxas' weekly urinalyses! And Sora brought me here so I could meet _some singer guy,"_

Sora is all smiles, delighted by the serendipitous event. "Hey! I thought it was a good idea,"

They're all walking to the exit now, Pence and Olette talking about cultural Marxism, Hayner on his phone, Xion and Kairi recounting their favorite parts from the concert. Riku leans over to Sora, rearing back to start a playful argument with Axel, whispering, "it was a good idea. See? You're a good friend. I think they both needed this."

And Roxas is walking with Axel, side-by-side, laughing at something. Axel's face is lit up, and he's all movement, all angles and geometry, giving Roxas necessary space while also conveying to him – with the sighs in his voice, the emphatic tone of his questions, the dilation of his pupils – that he is absolutely magnificent, all by himself. Axel suggests Indian food to Roxas, something they'd talk about while in the stale office together, waiting their turn to use the visual-monitoring facilities ( _"The VMF," Axel says smartly, flashing a quick smile to Roxas_ ), and Roxas happily chants for chicken tikkah masala with paneer naan. Roxas' bouquet spills over his forearm, the sugary flowers too large to hold in one hand, and their sweet nectar perfumes the air further, complementing Roxas' Axel-induced intoxication. Mind afloat and veins dilating. Heart thump-thumping, armpits moist with nervous sweat. He is lost in the wonder of Axel. Axel catches some of the flowers, careful to not bend the stems or damage the petals. He marvels at the rose's Fibonacci perfection, taken aback by their delicate, velvet-like quality, lost in the sweet baritone that is Roxas' golden, lucid speaking voice, wanting nothing more than for this moment to last as far as the night would allow, an endless golden thread to be stretched into perpetuity; the unknowns, the uncharted lakes and islands melting upon approach to their iteration of infinity.

-0-

The air is soft on the palm of his hand as he cups the passing wind while Axel drives a steady 60 miles per hour. The fog is much more beautiful when it floats above the sea, Roxas decides, and the golden gate bridge more moving, more incredible, when the fog refracts the dusty hues of light at nighttime. It glows. And for the first time, Roxas feels grounded in this part of the world; for the first time, he doesn't long for that old comforting sunset, the place he used to call home, with its bursting sunsets of orange, yellow, red, purple, green, with its hanging drops of light, as if walking some invisible road between light and dark, time as still as the dust particles suspended in the sky of his old home.

Those memories – the $4.00 lattes thrown across the kitchen, the disappointment of spinach by the handfuls shrinking into thin strings, the uneasy arguments on the sidewalk, the sudden frowns after something he said, Namine furiously doing the dishes with a loofah, Namine vehemently pleading to have sex after six weeks of zero intimacy, Namine desperately grinding her clit onto Roxas' tongue while he, high out of his mind, unhinges his jaw for her pleasure—carry with them an unfair weight of pain. They are physical manifestations of trauma. He didn't understand her obsession with sex. The fragility of a damaged soul borders between something like devastation and great enlightenment.

"Oh shit," Axel says suddenly. He laughs. "We're on the golden gate. This is definitely gonna add an hour to our trip home. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah, of course. It's so beautiful," Roxas says. "I've never seen it like this, you know?"

"Yeah," Axel leans forward, trying to catch a view of the top of the bridge. "It's glowing! Oh, and we don't have to pay the toll! Double win," he slows slightly, the engine sputtering a deep mechanical sound of deceleration. "This happens to me all the time. I always miss the Richmond Bridge. I guess in good company," he steals a glance at Roxas, "it's easy to lose track of where you're going."

Roxas nods. He takes off his glasses and rubs his face.

"Aw, you rubbing the sleepiness off?"

"We've been on the road for so long! Plus, that huge burrito we had earlier,"

"Mhm," Axel checks his phone for the navigation. Turn left on Van Ness. "Good call on that food truck, by the way. Petaluma never disappoints."

In a city of bells, it is easy to keep track of time. The looming darkness of hustling haunts the city along the seashore, to be sure, but it is that pressure that holds within it the proclivity to transmute. Appetite without awareness of the sacrum, the stomach, the curling of toes from earth-shattering sex, will never fully satisfy. To judge a life by the number of times you've had great sex is to misunderstand beauty for that which is incendiary. Beauty haunts, moves, awakens; it blows gently in the wind, it does not heal. It is the wind causing your candle to flicker as you search for yourself in the reflection of the window at twilight. It crashes into you, careens from the margins, rears from the outskirts. Beauty is the ballerina-turned-prostitute. It is the punk who uses Sharpie for eyeliner, their finger a toothbrush, flower pollen for perfume on a third date to the abandoned hot tubs.

"Are you coming to my opera, Rox?" Axel asks. They're on the Bay Bridge now.

"Again? I don't have a casual $90 to spend, sorry Ax,"

He chuckles. "Nah, I'm just teasing. I'm getting used to seeing you is all,"

Roxas' feels a buzz in his cheeks. "Yeah, same. We can go to the Square after your show, though. Do you want to grab some food and tell me about the time you robbed a store?"

"Ouch. Too soon, my friend," he shakes his head. "I kid, I kid. Sure thing. You've told me about your fear of headlights, and your felony-but-not-felony, so I can share a thing or two."

The memories come less often now. He deleted every single photo, every single file, of her. And to tell the truth, the piece he "wrote" for her wasn't even about her. Like the dirt road at nighttime, drenched in the silvery sheets of starlight, his creative dunes were his and his alone. Unadulterated. Lonely. Treasured memories.

"I could even start the story now, if you want."

The lights of San Francisco pass in a dizzying sequence. "You'll have to tell me about it some other time." Roxas yawns and leans back in the passenger seat. He pulls his scarf over his nose, closes his eyes, and slowly feels the intoxicating effects of sleep take over his eyes, his forehead, vision. ("You're right. It's been a long day. We're almost to your place. I'll drive more carefully. I'll wake you up when we get there. Sleep tight, Rox.")

Missing the window to his passenger door, Axel drives in comforting silence to Piedmont, eyes glittering. He feels the warm delight of spicy Mexican food sitting in his stomach, and he is at once grateful, giddy, and excited. With Roxas, the bends are uncertain and taken with great care. He remembers the first time Roxas came inside of Options Recovery for a visually monitored drug test. Glancing at Roxas' sleeping form, he smiles, and feels the compelling side of a tempest brewing inside of him, his heart. With Roxas, talking comes easily and he hears the music always, all the time, like a faint low bowing in the background, like static. From the rehab center to the northern coast to the golden gate, they always wander. They stray.


End file.
